By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Journalist and author Brigid Delaney is giving up her job as a speechwriter for Social Affairs Minister Tanya Plibersek to return to her first loves and, frankly, she couldn’t be more back.
The ex-columnist at Guardian Australia and co-creator of the Netflix comedy drama Wellmania officially left the employ of the federal government on Tuesday, having worked for Finance Minister Katy Gallagher before Plibersek.
Brigid Delaney is leaving the federal government to launch a stoicism advisory business, a Substack and two books. Credit: Carly Earl
Delaney has four (count ’em) projects on the go: a consultancy business, a hybrid novel-memoir about stoicism, a demi-semi autobiographical comic novel. Oh and a Substack, natch.
The Substack, called The Chaos Era with Brigid Delaney, should have launched by now, unless Delaney left her laptop at a station, or got trapped on a train in a station tunnel, or slipped while bushwalking on an island, triggering a rescue by the coastguard, or suffered any of her many trademark real-life snafus she will doubtless be writing about.
Meanwhile, her hybrid book, The Seeker and the Sage, billed as “a stoic conversation to hold you together in a fractured world”, is due out in September. Delaney, also a former Sydney Morning Herald trainee, hit a jackpot with her previous stoicism book, Reasons Not To Worry, which sold in 22 territories and was translated into 19 languages.
It followed on from Wellmania, her book which investigated the wellness industry, which was turned into a Netflix series starring Celeste Barber.
In addition, Delaney has just launched her Stoic Solutions consultancy, which translates the timeless teachings of the ancient stoics Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetis for the modern corporate audience so they can retool their bandwidth, tie a bow around it, resolve hanging issues and crush their KPIs.
But wait. Delaney is planning a novel, which will supercharge the real-life adventures (see above) she chronicled in her diary column for Guardian Australia.
Creatures across the journalistic/literary/entertainment/political blob will have only one question on their minds when they learn of its existence: am I going to be in this thing?
Stoked to be on the speaking circuit
CBD’s reporting on the rehabilitation of disgraced former High Court judge Dyson Heydon has been the talk of legal circles around the country.
Heydon has released a new self-published book on contract law, which has given his supporters an excuse to conveniently gloss over the independent High Court-commissioned investigation which in 2020 found he had sexually harassed six female associates, drawing an apology from then-chief justice Susan Kiefel.
Amanda StokerCredit: Alex Ellinghausen
Anyway, Heydon’s public return will be upon us in August when he addresses conservative legal organisation the Samuel Griffith Society’s annual conference in Perth. As CBD has reported, there are a few high-profile attendees in the mix, including former attorney-general Christian Porter, now plying his trade as an in-demand barrister in Western Australia after he quit politics following a historic rape allegation. He firmly denies the allegation and has never been charged.
Now, another ghost from the Morrison government is set to join the conference, with former Liberal National senator Amanda Stoker also on the speaking list. In a past life, Stoker was a High Court associate herself, later going on to become a conservative rising star in the Liberals’ Christian Soldier faction before running headlong into the party’s infamous “women problem”.
In 2021, she lost a Senate preselection to amateur psephologist and taxidermy-enthusiast James McGrath, who she claimed got up because he drank more beers with the preselectors. Stoker would later allege that former Liberal senator David Van had sexually harassed her while the pair were in parliament. Van denied the allegations.
Stoker has since landed on her feet in Queensland politics, elected to parliament last year and holding a spot in Premier David Crisafulli’s ministry. We asked her if she had thoughts on sharing a stage with Heydon but didn’t get a response. We’ll have to wait until August.
Corridors of power
SPOTTED: ABC chairman Kim Williams, trudging the corridors of power in Parliament House, looking dapper and a trifle cold but rocking a pretty great overcoat about 9am on Tuesday on the ground floor, near the Pool of Reflection. And doesn’t he have a bit to reflect on. We won’t mention Antoinette Lattouf if you don’t.
No doubt Williams is eagerly awaiting, like the rest of Australia’s corporate/media/political types, the August launch of Unapologetically Ita, by his predecessor as ABC chair Ita Buttrose, who promises to reflect on “everything from sex to leadership with her characteristic wit, compassion and razor-sharp intellect”. Can’t wait.
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